Finding our O'Donoghue Ancestors from Ballyduff North Kerry: The Story of our Family: Generation Four

THE STORY OF OUR FAMILY

GENERATION FOUR

CHARLOTTE KEEBLE AND THE KEEBLES

James Keeble (b. 1730s) and Mary – my gggggrandparents

James (b.1757) and Sarah Haggar (b.1762) – my ggggrandparents

John (1801-1870) and Mary Mower (1801-1840) – my gggrandparents

Charlotte (1838/9-1904) and James Tait (1840-1919) -– my ggrandparents

Ada Agnes Tait (1879-1936) and James O’Donoghue (1874-1965) – my grandparents

This is a story of country folk from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, through the turmoil of the agricultural and industrial revolutions with a few migrations into the Victorian East End.

A gradual transformation of the traditional agricultural system began in Britain in the 18th century. Aspects of this complex period of change, which was not completed until the 19th century, included the reallocation of land ownership to make farms more compact and an increased investment in technical improvements, such as new machinery, better drainage, scientific methods of breeding, and experimentation with new crops and systems of crop rotation. The enclosure of communal lands into today’s boundaried fields was fundamental to this period.

My great grandmother, Charlotte Keeble, and her family were right in the middle of these changes, but it does not appear that the industrial revolution, ie factory work, really affected her family much. Most of them remained in agriculture as labourers.

The villages of Baylham (see left) and Nettlestead (see later) in Suffolk are at the heart of this story and while marriage extended the residential places, it wasn’t really by much. Just like in rural Ireland people met their future spouses, or had their matches made, within a very small geographic area.

In 1841, the Keeble name was very geographically concentrated: Suffolk 328 people, Essex 200, London 168 with minimal numbers elsewhere. By 1911 this distribution had moved to: Suffolk 874 people, Essex 552, London 708. While this might seem to make the task of tracing them easier, the use of the same Christian names actually means it’s quite testing to know whether one has the right James or Mary or whatever.

I had to consider in what order to tackle this family as I have taken it quite a long way back. I will tell Charlotte’s story first and then go back through her siblings followed by the earlier generations.

Charlotte’s story

Charlotte Keeble was born in Baylham, in 1839, and baptised at Baylham St Peters (see left). The village is about seven miles north west of Ipswich and in the C of E deanery of Bosmere.

Her father John was an agricultural labourer and her mother was Mary Mower. They were married in 1823 in Baylham. I am guessing a bit to say Mary was born in 1799 in nearby Elmsett to a Robert and Abigail. She died in 1840.

Charlotte was the youngest of eight children. Other Keebles in the village in 1841 were her grandmother, Sarah, age 75, and her uncle William and his family.

By 1851 the family had moved to Great Blakenham, and ten years later Charlotte was employed as a servant in the household of a woollen draper in Ipswich.

Charlotte was living in Plaistow, West Ham in 1871 with a George Reed and two children, Mary b.1868 and Augustus b.1869. George was a carpenter and was born in Gravesend, Kent. I have been unable to find a marriage, but George died in 1874 leaving Charlotte with two little kids. Non-married relationships were reasonably common in the 19^th century; perhaps Charlotte was not the marrying kind. Her children, however, took the Reed name.

On Ada’s birth certificate in 1879, her mother is described as Charlotte Tait, late Reed formerly Keeble, but two years later, in the 1881 census, she is described as Charlotte Phillips (and Ada also as Phillips, presumably because her parents weren’t married yet). Charlotte is shown as housekeeper and a widow. Perhaps after George Reed died Charlotte set up house with a Mr Phillips before meeting James. Or perhaps it was just an enumerator’s cock up. It’s all rather confusing. The census enumerator was the person who appeared at your door to record who lived at your house.

My suspicion is that she was not married to either of these gentlemen, as it took four years from Ada’s birth for her to marry James Tait - in 1884 at St Paul’s Bow Common (right).

I wondered what happened to Charlotte’s Reed children. Mary Emma (Charlotte’s mother and sister’s names) was born in Plaistow and Augustus George in West Ham.

Mary Emma’s story was uncomfortable for a while. In 1881 she was recorded as a visitor (with surname Reeve, I am not sure the enumerator was concentrating!) in the Tait household. Odd I thought, why not as Charlotte’s daughter like Ada. In 1891 Mary was in the Poplar Workhouse (see left) working as a machinist and in the same year gave birth to a boy, Henry. Unmarried pregnant

women were often disowned by their families and the workhouse became their only refuge. I suspect that is what happened. Her life was clearly complicated, and then it improved as in 1895 she married Sydney Leech in Poplar and they had a number of children. She worked as a dressmaker. Henry is shown as a son rather than stepson so he was alright too, but the 1911 census shows that of the seven children Mary had, only four survived.

Augustus is a virtual blank in terms of knowledge of his life. I know his birth and his death date, 1947 in East Ham, but nothing in between except that he was an engine driver on tugboats. He’s out there in the records somewhere, but I haven’t found him yet.

Charlotte died in the last quarter of 1904, almost certainly in 18 Cotton Street.

The village of Baylham and the life of an agricultural labourer

It was recorded in the Domesday Book (1086) as Beleham. So its history goes a long way back. But our period is the 18^th and 19^th centuries when the process of enclosure changed humble country folk’s lives for ever.

Enclosure was the division or consolidation of communal fields, meadows, pastures, and other arable lands in western Europe into the carefully delineated and individually owned and managed farm plots of modern times. Before enclosure, much farmland existed in the form of numerous, dispersed strips under the control of individual cultivators only during the growing season and until harvesting was completed for a given year. Thereafter, and until the next growing season, the land was at the disposal of the community for grazing by the village livestock and for other purposes. To enclose land was to put a hedge or fence around a portion of this open land and thus prevent the exercise of common grazing and other rights over it.

In England the movement for enclosure began in the 12th century and proceeded rapidly in the period 1450–1640, when the purpose was mainly to increase the amount of full-time pasturage available to manorial lords. Much also occurred in the period from 1750 to 1860, when it was done for the sake of agricultural efficiency. By the end of the 19th century the process of the enclosure of common lands was virtually complete.

John Clare (1793–1864) was an English Romantic poet, who grew up in a village near Peterborough. The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and sorrows at its disruption. He finished school at 11 and was self-taught. As a nature lover and inveterate rambler, I like his stuff. The Cottager is relevant to our story and I have included the first sixteen lines below.

True as the church clock hand the hour pursues
He plods about his toils and reads the news,
And at the blacksmith's shop his hour will stand
To talk of 'Lunun' as a foreign land.
For from his cottage door in peace or strife
He neer went fifty miles in all his life.
His knowledge with old notions still combined
Is twenty years behind the march of mind.
He views new knowledge with suspicious eyes
And thinks it blasphemy to be so wise.
On steam's almighty tales he wondering looks
As witchcraft gleaned from old blackletter books.
Life gave him comfort but denied him wealth,
He toils in quiet and enjoys his health,
He smokes a pipe at night and drinks his beer
And runs no scores on tavern screens to clear.

After this somewhat sanitised description of one single man’s rural life, what of a family’s accommodation?

The Rev. James Fraser, afterwards Bishop of Manchester, one of the Assistant Commissioners in the inquiry made in 1867-68 into the conditions of the agricultural labour (an inquiry nominally confined to the employment of women and children, but really extending to the whole subject), reports that "the majority of" cottages that exist in rural parishes are deficient in almost every requisite that should constitute a home for a Christian family in a civilised community. They are deficient in bedroom accommodation, very few having three chambers, and in some chambers the larger proportion only one. They are deficient in drainage and sanitary arrangements; they are conveniences as they have are often so situated as to become nuisances; they are full enough of draughts to generate any amount of rheumatism; and in many instances are lamentably dilapidated and out of repair.

"It is impossible to exaggerate the ill effects of such a state of things in every aspect, physical, social, economical, moral, intellectual. Physically, a ruinous, ill-drained cottage, cribbed, cabin'd, confined, and overcrowded, generates any amount of disease, fevers of every type, catarrh, rheumatism, as well as intensifies to the utmost that tendency to scrofula (disease of the lymph nodes) and phthisis (tuberculosis) which, from their frequent intermarriages and their low diet, abound so largely among the poor.

"The moral consequences are fearful to contemplate. … Modesty must be an unknown virtue, decency an unimaginable thing, where in one small chamber … two and sometimes three generations are herded promiscuously, … where the whole atmosphere is sensual, and human nature is degraded into something below the level of the swine. It is a hideous picture, and the picture is drawn from life."

If that was in the mid-19^th century what must it have been like in the 18^th? These conditions were not much different from our ancestors in North Kerry. Our Keebles were certainly not very long lived, although I have not done a complete search on death dates.

In 1841 Baylham had 275 residents, eight farms and almost all the employment was driven by them

with support trades of miller, gamekeepers x 4, thatcher, shopkeeper, grocer, wheelwright, blacksmith, shoemaker and brickmaker. It was an archetype self-sufficient country village and everyone was born in Suffolk. No school is separately identified but I imagine it was attached to the rectory. Produce/animals would have been taken to Needham Market or Great Blakenham for sale, both are about two miles from Baylham. The main items were cereals (including wheat, barley, and oats), sugar beets, cattle, and pigs.

In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described the village like this:

BAYLHAM, a parish in Bosmere district, Suffolk; on the river Gipping and the Eastern Union railway, 1 mile NNW of Claydon station, and 7 NW by W of Ipswich. Post Town Claydon, under Ipswich. Acres, 1,332. Real property, £2,276. Pop., 327. Houses, 65. The property is all in one estate. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Norwich. Value, £256. Patron, W. Downes, Esq. The church is old but good.

There are still some very historic buildings in the village.

Baylham Hall, an early 17^th century manor house with alterations from later 17th to mid-19^th centuries, which is now a Grade II listed building. The house stands within a partly infilled mediaeval moat. It is now a rare breeds farm open to the public.

Baylham Mill comprises a watermill and mill house. The house is in two sections - early 16^th century or earlier, and mid-19^th century. The mill is of the early or mid-19^th century. This is also Grade II listed

Parts of Baylham Church date back to the early

1100s and then bits from the centuries thereafter. In 1870-1, the Rector at the time (the Revd W E Downes referenced above) was determined to restore the church, which was reported to have suffered from ‘neglect and injudicious care’. The work cost £1000 of which 50% was paid for by the Acton family who were the lords of the manor.

The River Gipping flows through the village. The source is in the village of Mendlesham Green about 7.5 miles north east. It is fed by waters drained from fields.

How did the characteristics of the village change over the next 50 years? By 1891 there were 6 (vs 8) farms. The same trades were still there but there was also a separate farrier, two farm bailiffs, a scrap collector/sweep and a pork butcher. And there was a teacher for the Governor’s School.

There was only one Keeble family in the village by 1881 and they were unrelated to ours as far as I can see.

The number of people living in the village today hasn’t changed much at all – 250 (25 less than in 1841)

Charlotte’s parents and siblings

John Keeble (1801-70) and Mary Mower (1799-1840) - my gggrandparents

Mary Harriett (b.& d.1823)

Eliza (1826-69) and Thomas Buckingham (1825- ) from Claydon

Emma (1828- ) and George Manby (1824- ) from Creeting St Mary

John (1830- ) and Susan Whiting (1830- ) from Leiston near coast

Caroline (1832- ) and John Buckle (1822- ) from Earl Stonham

James (1834- ) and Margariet (1846- ) from Co. Wicklow, Ireland

Ann (1836- ) and Robert Squirrel (1829- ) from Darmsden

Charlotte (1838- ) and George Reed (1840- )

and James Tait (1840- ) – my ggrandparents

It was a pretty good record to only lose one child to an early death.

Apart from the two indicated in italics and, of course, Charlotte who went to London, as far as I can see all the children met, married and stayed in the area in places 3-4 miles from Baylham. James’s Irish wife Margariet probably came over for the annual hiring of Irish farm workers to help with the harvest, and stayed.

All the men remained agricultural labourers. Of the children James added grocer and gardener to his repertoire, and John rose up the ranks to farm 170 acres on his own account.

Charlotte’s ancestors

James Keeble (b.1730s) of Nettlestead and Mary (b.1730s)– my gggggrandparents

James Keeble (1757- ) and Sarah Haggar (1762- ) – my ggggrandparents

James (1782-3) buried in Nettlestead

Sarah (1784- ) and John Caley (1781- ) from Yaxley

Elizabeth (1786- ) and John James from Barking

James (1788- ) and Sarah Barrell

and Mary Morris (1785- ) from Debenham

William (1790- ) and Charlotte Barrell (1801- ) from Nettlestead

and Amy Holland (1803- ) from Somersham

Charlotte (1800-22)

John (1801-70) and Mary Mower (1799-1840) - my gggrandparents

I have concluded that James Keeble (b.1757) was from Nettlestead, a small, dispersed village on the northern outskirts of Somersham and less than two miles from Baylham. For some reason it is not shown on the A-Z map scan included earlier; I have no idea why.

This was where the family resided in the first half of the 18^th century. I can’t be absolutely certain that I have the right family, but there are a number of pointers.

James and Sarah were married in Baylham in 1782. Their first son, James (1782-3), died young and was buried in Nettlestead. As you see above, they named a later son James which, at a time when infant mortality was high, happened quite often.

My ggggrandfather James was the son of James Keeble and a Mary. This couple had thirteen children in Nettlestead between 1756 and 1777. Many of their Christian names are repeated over later generations. I have shown all their children in Appendix One.

The village of Nettlestead

In Nettlestead there were two manor houses: The Chace and High Hall. Both are shown on the attached old map. Our agricultural labourer ancestors may well have worked on one or both of them.

The Chace belonged to the Earls of Richmond and then passed over the centuries to Peter II, the Count of Savoy, Richard de Tiptoft, the Despencers and the Wentworths. It became Nettlestead Hall (shown as such on map) under the ownership of the latter family and retains an ancient gateway, bearing the arms of the Wentworths. From the 13th to the 16th centuries the Nettlestead families were patrons of the house of friars minor in Ipswich. It is now called Nettlestead Chace and is Grade II listed.

What was a manor house? During the European Middle Ages, it was the dwelling of the lord of the manor or his residential bailiff and administrative centre of the feudal estate. The medieval manor was generally fortified to the degree of peaceful settlement of the country or region in which it was located. The manor house was the centre of secular village life, and its great hall was the scene of the manorial court and the place of assembly of the tenantry. The particular character of the manor house is most clearly represented in England and France, but under different names similar dwellings of feudal overlords existed in all countries wherein the manorial system developed.

By the 18^th century it was where the local major landlord lived, who will have employed many local

people.

High Hall dates back to the 16th Century and was built by Huguenots who had fled from France during series of religious persecutions. It is Grade II listed.

The Church of St Mary is mainly dated to around 1500, but with the core from the 12^th century and later. There are some very historic decorations and the font is early 15^th century. The church is Grade I listed.

Located to the north-west of Ipswich and 11 miles from Stowmarket, the village’s population in 2005 was 90.

The Keeble name

Suffolk shows the largest proportion (35%) of Keebles in England in 1891. Originally the name was from South Germany as Kübel, a metonymic (the substitution of an associated thing) occupational name for a cooper, from Middle High German kübel which means a ‘tub’ or a ‘vat’.

Sources & acknowledgements